


Salt Water

by EllieL



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Ocean Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL
Summary: Three vignettes about comfort and healing, during and after ROTJ
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	Salt Water

*

I know a cure for anything.  
Salt water, in one way or another -   
sweat, or tears, or the sea

-Isak Dinesen

*

Between the apparent wind from the speeder and the blowing sand swirling around them, any gains in vision he might have been making were lost. Han squeezed his eyes shut, protecting them from the glare and the sand, and felt some of the ache in them ease.

The rest of his body ached, though, with injuries old-- _ how old? _ \--and new. And his skin was covered in a mix of carbonite particulate, sweat, and sand. He’d spent the night shivering in the cell with Chewie, cold sweat trying to purge the carbonite from his system. Today, the desert heat had leached more sweat from him despite still feeling chilled, coating him in filth.

“Hey.”

He hadn’t heard her light steps approaching, but felt her warmth like a star’s gravity as she settled next to him on the decking. One hand settled on his clammy shoulder as she pressed something into his hand.

“Drink. You’re dehydrated. We were supposed to get you back last night, get you IV fluids and drops for your eyes….”

He chugged the tepid water, suddenly unable to get enough, almost choking before pulling it from his lips. Fumbling, he tried to find her hand without opening his eyes. She met his fingers with hers, and he could feel the heat radiating from them, usually so cool, skin raw. 

“Leia?”

Fingers closed around his, strong. “Strangling a Hutt is harder on the hands than hyperdrive repairs.”

His eyes snapped open then, struggling to see any of her face beyond blurriness, wanting to see her eyes. But the world still looked as if underwater, and he closed them again, instead bringing her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles softly.

“You okay?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

He could hear the brittle note in her voice, planned to ask again later. Whenever they got--

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the Falcon. It’s near Obi Wan’s old place. We’re about twenty minutes out.”

His head dropped in something like a nod, arm reaching for her. He’d expected her to tuck in next to him but she held herself very still. His hand tangled in a heavy swath of-- _ cape? cloak? what was she wearing? _ \-- then his fingers slid through it and brushed against the bare skin of her waist, and he instantly understood her rigidity.

“Leia.”

Her hand came to rest on his cheek,  _ not now _ . 

“I’ve got you back. And I’ll feel better once we get back to the ship and can get showered and changed. Get you taken care of properly.”

Fingers brushed through his grimy hair, snagging and untangling. Her forehead came to rest against his temple as her body finally softened, curled against his side, warm, alive.

For the moment it was enough, another stolen moment of togetherness in the midst of the maelstrom of their lives. Always at the most inopportune moments, while hiding in caves at night on Crna and in shacks in Ord Mantell slums and a freighter crawling through realspace. That felt so fresh, bruises from Bespin still aching with each breath.

“How long?” He broke the spell, and she raised her head but stayed close, wrapping him up in the tent of her cloak. 

“Six months.”

He made a noise in his throat, somewhere between a hum and a growl.

“I’m sorry—“

“No, no don’t apologize. You came for me, you saved me…” he trailed off, suddenly dizzy and overheated. As much as it pained him, he pushed her away from him, pushed the heavy fabric off of him. Cool air, he needed cool air. And he wasn’t likely to get it here, too warm, heat roiling off everything, sweat across his brow.

Gagging, he twisted onto his hip, leaning towards the open railing at the side of skiff. Vaguely he was aware of her hands on his lower back, helping counterbalance him as he retched over the side. Water and carbonite blew away into the desert, out of his system, into his past. He wanted to put this whole experience in the past.

When she pulled him back towards her, he realized he was trembling and sweating again. 

“It's all right, Han. Your system is purging the carbonite, which is good. As long as you don’t dehydrate.”

“How — long til —“ he managed to grind out.

“No one knows. You were frozen longer than any other known human. Best guess, extrapolating from Ugnaught experience, is a few days.”

“Right. Great.” He fell back harder than intended against the decking, as his clammy hand slipped.

“It’s why you’ve got to keep drinking, even if it feels like it’s making you sick. Keep sweating the carbonite out. You’ll feel better once it’s all flushed out.”

His head lolled against her shoulder, leaving a damp, sweaty trail behind. She handed him the water again, and he drank.

*

He’d known her for a few years now, seen her in all manner of distress and trauma, from the very moment he’d met her. In all that time he’d never seen her cry.

Yet here she was, the night before a critical mission, weeping on the edge of a teddy bear village in the trees. He couldn’t imagine what Luke could have said to her to elicit such a response. Part of him wanted to race after him, throttle him for whatever he’d done to cause such a reaction. 

But she was here, crying in his arms. Had asked for comfort from him in a way she’d never quite done before; she’d  _ allowed _ it from him in the past but had never  _ asked _ , never sounded quite so small and so lost. 

He stroked her hair, stroked her back, kept her close. There were a thousand questions flying through his brain but he tamped down every one of them and focused on the woman clinging to him as if he were the last safe port in the galaxy. 

Telling her that it was okay, or that everything would be all right, would be obvious lies. Especially given that he didn’t know what part of this whole situation was the problem, or if this was some previously undiscovered issue. So he stayed quiet, let his hands do what words could not. 

It felt like they stood there for hours, but it couldn’t have really been more than a few minutes before she quieted and tightened her arms around him in a brief squeeze before pulling back slightly. Pulling herself together; he could feel her spine straightening under his hands.

Returning the squeeze with a light one of his own, his hands then slid down her arms to catch her hands. He brought one up to his lips, lightly kissing the back of her hand without taking his eyes off hers. 

“C’mon,” he mumbled, giving her a gentle tug.

She hung back, seemingly frozen in place. 

“We gotta get some sleep before moving out at 0530.”

Though she gave a light shake of her head, she took a step towards him. “I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Rest, then.” He dropped a kiss on the crown of her head, and she offered no resistance. “Keep me company?” He tried to keep his tone light but didn’t quite manage to keep the neediness out of the question.

“Okay.” Her own voice was husky, hitching as she took a breath and decided not to say more.

This time she allowed him to pull her along with him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tucking her close against him until they reached the hut he’d been directed to earlier. 

She sat stiffly on the edge of the pile of furs, hugging her knees, tear tracks still visible on her cheeks. He let her sit that way while he sat down next to her and pulled off his boots and shed his vest. Then he wrapped an arm around her before breaching the silence.

“You sure you don’t want to talk? You always want to talk.”

Leia took a shaky breath before burying her head against his shoulder. “I need to compartmentalize. For tonight. Tomorrow, if we….”

“Okay, okay,” he soothed, hand stroking through her loose hair.

“Ask me tomorrow night.”

*

There was nothing as far as the eye could see except creamy sand and bright turquoise water. Leia sat under the wavering shade of the frond trees, gazing out at the gentle sea. The air carried the scent of salt, and the lapping waves were lulling. She let her eyes fall closed, listening. Somewhere inside the cottage, she heard the faint clatter of Han moving about, and, mere moments later, the aroma of fresh kaffe.

Her eyes stayed closed, but she heard his bare footsteps approaching on the worn wood. When he came up close behind her, she opened them to laugh as he leaned upside down over her to kiss her good morning. Then a mug of kaffe appeared at her elbow, and he swung around her lounger to settle onto the one beside her.

“You’re up early.”

She gestured mildly out over the water. “I was watching the sunrise.”

He hummed, then took a long sip from his mug. “Water looks like something out of a holo.”

“It was so dark when we got here last night I didn’t notice. Have you been here before?”

For a long minute he was quiet, and looked at her sideways. “Coupla times. ‘S hard to find, hard to land.” He shrugged, shifting in the creaking deck chair.

“Not for pleasure then.” She took a careful sip from the mug.

Shaking his head, still looking out at the water, he frowned. “No. Never even got in the water.”

“Let’s!” Grinning, she put down her mug and was off, running barefoot across the already-warm sand, thin nightdress fluttering around her.

She heard him sputter for a moment, then footsteps pounded behind her. Without looking back, she ran, as fast and as hard as she could, laughing, feeling the wind tangling in loose locks of hair, heard him laughing behind her too. When her feet hit wet sand she slowed, spun, and was caught up in his arms, hurtling them both towards the water, still laughing.

When they hit the edge of the breaking waves, he stumbled, and tried to balance them. But another wave hit them, and they both went tumbling. The water was warm and very salty, enough that once they were in the sea, they were quite buoyant, and splashed deeper, still laughing, uncaring that they were soaked. 

Once she was shoulder deep, she stopped and pulled her nightdress over her head and tossed it back towards the beach. He raised an eyebrow at her, and took two steps into deeper water, before dunking down long enough to emerge and toss his shorts towards the beach as well; neither of them noticed that they ended up sloshing in the surf instead.

Both were instead focused on the other, lips meeting as limbs tangled. Her arms wound around his neck and shoulders, as his went around her waist and bottom, hoisting her up, pulling her close, until her legs surrounded him, too, and he had to brace to find his balance between her and the waves. They rocked together, bare flesh pressed together by the waves and by their own desire.

She could feel his desire growing against her, hotter than the tropical water. The water helped her move into him, pressing closer, skin gliding across skin, lips finding his shoulder and kissing up, up, up his neck, tongue catching the edge of his jaw.

He pulled her flush against him as her lips found his, and she was floating, suspended with nothing around her but him centering her universe. Rolling her hips with the flow of the water against him, she let out a breathy sigh against his cheek. It took no effort at all to roll her hips again, let the water lift her a bit, let him lift her a bit, and settle down onto him as she captured his lips again.

It felt like the most natural thing in the galaxy. They let the water rock them together, moving with the rhythm of the waves. Time became irrelevant, and it was just them in the water, together. She wasn’t sure if her climax washed over her slowly or suddenly, but she was there, and he was too, together with her.

They floated there in the water for a long while, before Han began walk them both back towards the shore. Their scraps of clothing had washed ashore, tangling with seaweed and drying with a rime of salt, and they retrieved it without a word. Seaweed flew between them with a laugh but no words, before they wrapped their arms around one another again and made their way back to the peaceful cottage.

*


End file.
